


The Knights Don't Save Princesses Just to Marry Them

by JustantotherGabrielle



Series: Sappy (Mostly Gay) Short Stories [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: Aromantic Character, Asexual Character, But I have never published it anywhere, Dragons, Fellow aro/aces this is for you, Friendship, Gen, I wrote this for Pride Month, Knights and Princesses, Royalty, This is so selfinserting, so here ya go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-03
Updated: 2020-12-03
Packaged: 2021-03-09 21:02:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27862745
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustantotherGabrielle/pseuds/JustantotherGabrielle
Summary: A knight who has been walking through his country for some time arrives at a village where he finds out that the daughter of a mayor has been kidnapped by a dragon. And as knights do, he goes to save her. But if only the world stopped thinking that every knight who saves a princess wants to marry her.
Relationships: Original Aro/Ace Character(s), Original Female Character & Original Male Character
Series: Sappy (Mostly Gay) Short Stories [2]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2052096
Kudos: 8





	The Knights Don't Save Princesses Just to Marry Them

The village was beaming with life. It was the day of the markets, the perfect day to find some connections, find out something about the people and the village itself and get some supplies. Just the perfect day for a knight to come.

Andrion came there because he was… bored. He recently saved the king’s life so he was stacked with money and he could easily live in total comfort for the rest of his life. But that wasn’t his style. He wanted to explore the world, to meet new people, maybe make some changes in the world on the way. That’s why he became a knight. To change something and see the world.

At first, it looked like he would never achieve it since the first job he got when he finished training as a knight was to protect the king’s castle. But then it was attacked by bandits and he jumped in the way of an arrow that was going on the king and he saved his life. The rest of the guards managed to capture the bandits but the king decided that he had to reward Andrion. So he gave him more gold than Andrion ever saw and more than he could ever spend. 

The king probably thought that he was going to buy some nice house in the city and find someone to spend the rest of his life with and so did a lot of the men and women in the city who were suddenly very interested in him but well, Andrion wanted to see the world. So he took a good amount of his money and set off to explore the country he always wanted to see so badly.

So far, nothing too interesting happened to him. He probably inspired a lot of little boys and girls to be a knight like him because of his stories he entertained the pubs or any other public places when he was bored or just wanted to talk. He also discovered how are people different throughout the country. 

People on the south were more distant, they had their own communities and didn’t really let anyone else in them, people in the east were more open-minded, they wanted to make the world a better place for everybody and they were also the first ones to make a famous tea that could change one’s body to the one they felt better in. On the other hand, people in the west more stick to the traditions and were convinced that they are the ones who are right in everything. And the people in the north were… probably Andrion’s favorite. They would let you sleep in their house just because you looked tired, they would spare their last piece of bread and then also wanted to see the world but still remained true to their home. They had the exact nature as Andrion so the favoritism was on both sides. 

When he came to some of the villages in the north he quickly became an attraction. Everyone wanted to know about the places he had been to and everyone was really nice to him. So it was obvious when he discovered that the daughter of the mayor of this village was kidnapped by a dragon living in the forest Andrion knew he had to save her so he could pay back at least a bit.

He came to this village just yesterday but he already managed to become an attraction number one mainly because of him being a knight but also because of his dark skin and tall lean figure, since people on the north were mostly white and small. He also managed to find out that said the dragon was really small and probably not that dangerous but all the people in the village were either farmers or traders and so they didn’t know how to fight a dragon even if it was just a smaller one. So Andrion headed to the markets to find out something more about the dragon and to get some food for himself.

When he wanted to make some conversation about the dragon however most of the people asked him the same question; “You want to know something about the dragon, huh? And what about something about Athelys, the girl that was kidnapped? Don’t you wanna know what she is like? How her eyes are all the colors of nature, how her hair is the color of the brightest gold? Don’t you wanna know that?”

At that, Andrion mostly responded; “No thanks, I’m gonna ask someone else, thanks for your time,” and disappeared to the crowd. 

It wasn’t that he didn’t want to know something about the one he was supposed to save, but not in the way that looked like everyone would be happy if he married her. Because he didn’t want to. He wanted to see the world not to plant roots with some girl he would never catch feelings for no matter how pretty she is. And it wasn’t just her. He had never caught feelings for anybody. The boys in the school where he trained to be a knight talked about the girls or boys or anyone else they liked but he had never felt the way as they told him they felt. He knew he was broken so he just focused on his training and didn’t let those thoughts to his mind. But there still were some times he just couldn’t help it and thought about it.

He thought about if there is someone like him, who doesn’t feel romantic feelings towards anyone and if he could meet them. Then maybe, they could see the world together as the best friends in the world, without a need for anything romantic. Oh how much he wished it could come true.

“Hey, boy, you there!” A voice suddenly spoke up from behind him. It made him a bit confused. He clearly wasn’t a boy anymore, he recently celebrated his twentieth year of life and he had to shave almost every morning but that man who yelled at him was clearly speaking to him. Well, maybe he doesn’t have a good estimation about the age, Andrion shrugged to himself and went to the man sitting on a bench in the shade who wanted to speak to him.

“You are the knight who wants to save Athelys, right? I saw you asking everyone about the dragon at the marketplace,” the older man asked him. He had black hair slowly beginning to turn silver, piercing ice-cold eyes that looked like they could see right through him and he was wearing a black coat even though it was the beginning of the summer and the sun was making everyone sweat no matter how short clothes they were wearing.

“Yeah, that’s me. Why do you ask?” Andrion scratched the back of his neck nervously. He wasn’t used to a weird old man with such eyes talking to him.

“I’m her father.” There was a beat of silence and then he continued, “The dragon that kidnapped her lives in the forest behind the last house on the east side of the village, the one with the red roof. It lives in a cave in the side of the mountain, there’s a secret path leading there. Be careful, there are pixies who will want to make you go off the path. You must not give in to them if you really want to save her.”

“I- thank you. I really needed that type of advice. So, um, do you think I should just… go? Or is it better to go in the morning when the dragon is away?” Andrion stuttered a bit.

“I believe it’s better to go as quickly as possible. I have no idea what that monster could be doing to my little girl right now and I don’t even want to imagine it. Go save her and get her back here. I, as a devastated father who just wants to see his child happy, am begging you to,” when he said the last sentence there was a hint of tears in his eyes and for the first time in the whole conversation he seemed like a human to Andrion.

“Of course, sir. I will save her, don’t worry,” Andrion nodded moved by the old man’s grief.

And so he left the village, heading to the dragon’s cave wondering what he was going to do when he got there. It’s not like he could just slay a dragon, right? But maybe he’ll have to, if it already ate the girl, as an act of revenge.  
He was walking through the forest, beware of the pixies when suddenly he heard some noises. It sounded like voices.

He sped up, walking quickly to the place from where the voices were coming. He was getting deeper and deeper into the forest but he didn't mind. He was a knight, he wasn't scared of anything. Except for horses. They terrified him. Pretty inconvenient for a knight, right? But that's a story for another day. Now he had to find out why there was anybody so deep in the forest, so close to the cave of the dragon that kidnaps humans.

The forest was getting darker and darker but the voices were stronger and stronger. Now Andrion could hear it was the voice of a girl and the other ones weren't human as he thought previously. It sounded like a mixture of meowing of a cat and chirping of birds. What kind of creature could make such a sound, Andrion thought.

Suddenly the darkness disappeared and Andrion could see a mountain before him. Well, it wasn't that much of a mountain, more like a steeper hill. And there, at the base of the mountain, he could hear the voice clear as a day. It definitely was a girl, about the same age as him, talking to those creatures with a really soft voice. Her voice was coming from a place he couldn't see but about fifteen feet above him was a cut in the mountain, like a parapet, Andrion couldn't see how wide.

“Aw, what have you done, Red Paw? Now the stone village is destroyed! We don't have a place to practice your fire-breathing now!” her voice was nice, Andrion liked the sound of it.

He wondered if the girl was the one he was supposed to save. If so, it didn't seem like she was in danger. That was good, that was definitely good. Andrion didn't like it when people suffered. But who was Red Paw? Was it some kind of imaginary friend she had? And why was it supposed to train fire-breathing?

“Oh no, Starry, don't run out, you'll get lost in the woods again just like White Tip did yesterday!” The girl’s voice sounded a bit desperate now but the second she finished talking there was a 'whoosh' sound and above Andrion flew a little ball of gold scales and teeth. It was so quick he didn't have any time to realize what was happening but then the next flash of color appeared, orange this time.

“C'mon! Red Paw! Not you too!” The voice now sounded closer and before Andrion could even think about it from the same place the two previous creatures appeared popped out a human head. It was a girl, with pretty long hair and a nice face now scrunched with worry. “Hey, guys, where did you go? Don't tell me you are that-”

Her lamenting stopped the second she looked down. There, about fifteen feet under her, stood Andrion, looking totally dumbfounded. 

“Oh, hi! What in the king's name are you doing here? And who even are you? And where are the dragons?” Her voice was gradually becoming angrier and angrier through her monologue.

“Dragons?” That was the only thing Andrion managed to say.

“Yeah, dragons, sharp teeth, colorful scales, long tails, wings, you know? Like those two that just ran away and probably flew or stumbled right under your nose,” there was a teasing undertone in her voice.

“You mean those two flashes of color that flew above my head?” The knight found his voice again.

“Flew? They can fly? Oh, my little babies, they've grown up so much!” She looked more proud now than angry. But then she snapped back to the 'worried mom' look, “In which direction did they go?”

“Uh, there?” He pointed behind him.

“You sure?”

“Nope.”

“Great, now I'm gonna have to-” Out of nowhere orange and yellow balls appeared from the forest. “Red Paw, Starry, you're back! My little babies, you came back!”

The girl climbed down from the parapet and ran to hug the little creatures Andrion finally got a good look on. They were indeed little dragons, one orange with a few red scales on its paw and smart eyes, the second one almost gold yellow with mischief flickering in its blue eyes.

The girl hugged them tightly like she was really worried about them. Judging by how she reacted when they ran away from her, she really was. It was kind of cute how much a human girl cares about some dragons. But then it hit him. What if she wasn't really human? What if she was half-dragon?

“Hey, are you a half-dragon?” He blurted out before he could properly think about it.

“What? A half-dragon? Me? No, I'm human from head to toes,” she stopped hugging the dragons and stood up, now almost laughing. That look looked good on her, Andrion had to admit. “Why would you think that?”

“I don't know, you just look like you care a lot about those dragons, and I thought that maybe they're your children or maybe your si-”

“My children?” At that, she actually started laughing. She laughed so much she bent in half and Andrion could swear he saw tears in the corner of her eyes.

“It's not that funny,” he stated dryly. But that made her laugh even more. Andrion couldn't help it, he started snickering a bit too. Maybe it was just a little bit funny, he thought.

“I- I'm sorry but… But I really couldn't help myself,” she managed to say between panting, standing up from her weird posture, and brushing off her tears.

“Well if you're not a half-dragon, who are you then?” he asked, genuine curiosity in his voice. He was pretty sure he knew who she was but he wanted her to confirm it.

“I'm Athelys, the daughter of the mayor of the nearest village, three days ago kidnapped by a dragon. Nice to meet you. And you are?” she offered her hand towards him.

“I'm Andrion, the knight who's supposed to save you. Pleasure is on my side,” he smiled and shook her hand. Now from up close, he could see that she indeed had eyes with all the colors. There was a dominance of green and brown but he could swear there were also tiny specks of blue and orange.

“Wait. You are supposed to save me?”

“Yeah, I'm a knight. That's what I do. Save innocent girls from evil dragons,” he chuckled a bit, but Athelys didn't look like she was amused by it.

“The dragon wasn't evil. She said that she just needed someone to keep an eye on her children while she attended the congress of dragons,” she pouted.

“Oh, so you were kidnapped by a female dragon with three children that needed you to babysit them?” While they were talking, the tiny dragons were playing around their legs, now there were three of them, the last one, White Tip if Andrion remembered correctly, scarlet red dragon with indeed a white tip on its tail, joined them a while ago. “And I can't forget, named Starry, White Tip and Red Paw. What kind of dragon names their children like that?”

“Well, first, you're right and second, that's not their real names, their real names are Alexianzianza, Tiandrioupl, and Onedioxias but I'm afraid I would break my tongue if I'd tried to say them every time I talked to them,” she folded her hands at her chest, standing in defensive posture. 

Andrion wanted to say something but then the sun was covered by a huge shadow. That made him confused because he was pretty sure the sky was cloudless when he was looking at it the last time. He looked up and saw a big dragon flying down to them.

“I guess you had perfect timing, knight. Now you can take me home as a true hero since mommy dragon is home and my job is ending then.” Andrion couldn't help it but he was sure it wasn't sincere. There was some kind of poison in her voice. But before he could ask her about it, the dragon landed behind her, making all the little dragons run-up to it.

“Human. Your job is now done. You are free to go back home. Would you like some type of payment?” The dragon’s voice echoed in the small place between the trees and the mountain.

Athelys turned around and looked right into the face of the dragon. From this close, it didn't look as huge as Andrion thought it was. It was actually a really small dragon, just like the villagers said.

“I require no payment, Darelexiana, it was a pleasure to be with such well behaved little dragons like your children,” the girl bowed her head. Andrion had no idea what he was supposed to do, so he just stood there like a stuffed dummy.

The sound the dragon made sounded almost like a laugh. Another weird thing in Andrion's day, learning that the dragons laugh.

“My children are the least well-behaved dragons the world has ever seen but thank you human for your compliment.”

“Like I said, I thank you for the opportunity to see young dragons, Darelexiana. Can I say goodbye to them?”

“Of course,” the dragon nodded.

Athelys kneeled down to the baby dragons and hugged them.

“It was very nice to meet you, little ones. You will grow up to such great dragons, I'm sure of it. I will never forget you,” she whispered to them. She stood up again, not paying attention to the small sad faces the dragons were making, probably knowing their babysitter is going to leave them.

“Goodbye, Darelexiana, it was so very nice knowing you,” she bowed again.

“It was nice meeting you too, human Athelys. I hope you'll find your heart’s greatest desire,” the dragon responded, and then her attention turned back to her children.

“Let's go,” she hissed to his ear and grabbed him by his forearm. Andrion was glad he knew why he came here in the first place because he had no idea what happened after he came here and so he gladly let himself be dragged away.

It wasn't till they were deep in the forest again before she let go of his arm and it took another while of awkward silence before anybody spoke up.

The first one to break the silence was Andrion, still a bit shaken by everything that happened.

“You know, you said you didn’t want to pronounce the names of the little dragons but you addressed the mother twice by her name, which by the way wasn’t an easy one either.”

“Yeah, it’s a polite thing to address dragons by their names, you’re showing them respect by that, dummy,” she responded tightly while staring right in front of her and walking sternly.

“Oh, okay…,” Andrion felt like the dumbest person in the world, again.

There was silence again before Athelys probably couldn’t bear it.

“You don’t know much about dragons, do you?” She asked, this time with a peaceful tone to her voice

“I don’t,” he admitted. “But you seem like you know a lot about them. Where did you learn all that stuff?”

“I read… a lot. As a daughter of a mayor, I didn’t have much to do. Except for waiting for the perfect husband.” There it was again. Anger and a bit of sadness in her voice.

“You don’t look like you are very happy about it,” he commented feeling that now they were talking in a more friendly way and so he could afford a question like that

“That’s because I’m not. I don’t want to marry anybody!” She threw up her arms but then she continued, “my father thinks that I’ll fall in love with someone and I could marry them and I could continue in the tradition of our family leading the village but I don’t like anybody! I have no idea why I am telling you this when we met literally like ten minutes ago and this is so personal but yeah, here I am. I just… it’s hard to explain and judging by how weirdly you’re looking at me you don’t get it but-“

“No, you don’t understand. I do get it. Like, I have it the same way get it.” He snapped from his wide-eyed, mouth open look back to normal.

“Wait, really? I never thought there could be anyone like me.” Now it was her who was looking wide-eyed at him.

“I always kind of hoped there would be somebody like me but I thought it was too foolish of a wish,” he admitted.

“Wow. I got kidnapped by a dragon that kidnapped me just so I can babysit its babies and then comes a heroic knight who’s just like me. What in the king’s name is happening and why all the exciting things were waiting so long to come?” She sounded genuinely curious but she was smiling from ear to ear. And Andrion couldn’t help himself but he had to smile too.

The two of them talked for the rest of the walk to the village suddenly being way more comfortable in each other’s company. Andrion told Athelys about his love for traveling and some of the places he had been to and she told him about part of her life living in the village. Apparently, she had always wanted to travel the world too and so they decided that if her father would agree they would go see the world together. 

When they arrived at the village, everyone was already looking forward to their arrival. They walked through the central square where the people still had their little stands selling all they could and Andrion could feel all the eyes staring at them. But thankfully Athelys didn’t care about it at all and she just led him to her house.

There they were both already expected. Her father looked very happy that his only daughter came back home and so Andrion was scared what will he think about them going to see the world, but the puppy eyes of his daughter were magical and so they were allowed to go. In reaction to that Athelys jumped happily around Andrion’s neck. That surprised both her father and him but he was glad that she was warming up to him. It looked like their journey was going to be pretty good.

And so they went to see the world. They met all kinds of different people, they ate a lot of different food, they saw a lot of different places. Some beautiful, some horrible but that didn’t stop them. 

And if you find a country where knights didn’t save girls and princesses just to marry them, you might be lucky and find our two friends too.

**Author's Note:**

> Hi! I really hope you enjoyed this, it's quite personal to me and I'm actually kind of proud of this story :) But also yeah, it's sappy and too fairy tale-y but all my stories are so...


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